Wishin' Volume 1 - Liz, Holly & the Jolly Lollies

Artist: Liz, Holly & the Jolly Lollies

Album:  Wishin' Volume 1

Age Range: 2 through 5

Description: Based in the Charlotte area, Liz Seegers and Holly Lorette are early childhood music teachers, so it's little surprise that their debut EP stays safely in that preschool age range.  Songs about transportation ("I Wish I Were an Airplane"), feeling OK when things go bad ("We All Have Bad Days"), a "Freeze!" song ("Wiggle Freeze") -- these are familiar topics for albums for this age range.

But there's something about this album that elevates it above a lot of the music I hear for this age range.  Maybe it's the slightly handmade sound, so it's not overproduced.  Maybe it's Seegers' and Lorette's voices, which are sweet but slightly nasally and sound lovely in harmony.  Maybe it's the fact that they offer up "Storm," which is more tone poem than song.  Maybe -- probably -- it's all three of those things.  Whatever, it just works.

You can listen to clips and one full song from the 16-minute album (hey, I said it was an EP!) here.  The duo is currently raising money via Kickstarter for Volume 2.  Based on the evidence from Volume 1, I'm looking forward to hearing more.  Recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.

Augie to Zebra (An Alphabet Book): Kate Endle & Caspar Babypants

Artist: Kate Endle & Caspar Babypants

Book: Augie to Zebra (An Alphabet Book!)

Age Range: 3 through 6

Description: The title of the third book from wife-and-husband team of Kate Endle and Chris Ballew pretty much says it all.  Alliterative activities featuring kids playing with animals, highlighted by Endle's delightful collage-work (among my favorites, the feline jug band featured in "Josie jams with jaguars.").  And, as you may surmise from that example, besides the repeating letters, 4-through-6-year-olds will have fun finding other items in each illustration that also start with the relevant letter.  The accompanying free mp3 for the book (available here) is nice, but tied as it is to the non-story (but literal) text, isn't particularly exciting.  In any case, fans of the previous two books from the duo will likely be pleased with this new entry.